Archive for January, 2012

In the United States, we are at a period in our history where many feel that our country has serious problems. In a sense we do, but at the same time I often find myself thinking that by saying we have all these problems we as citizens are instead giving the world an example of how we take the greatness of our lives for granted. Yes, we have economic issues, spending issues, educational issues, a practical laundry list of things we need to fix but at the same time, as we are annoyed by these issues, I think we often fail to realize that even with all these problems, our poorest citizens are living like kings compared to the rest of the world. Practically every citizen in this country owns a television, a luxury that the rest of the world will never experience. We have health care available through emergency rooms to anyone. Yes, it often puts a person in debt, but in many parts of the world when they say there is no access to healthcare, they are saying there is actually no place to even go, regardless of cost. In truth, when we speak of the issues here, we are more realistically saying that we are afraid of losing our cushy lives and the threat of that pisses us off, much like a spoiled child losing all the extra toys a poor child never has. I want to take a moment o show what I think are the REAL PROBLEMS facing the world because they have little to do with a persons lack of material things.

Starvation-As the people in this country get angry that they do not have enough extra money they usually use on entertainment they often fail to consider that a large percentage of the world is STARVING TO DEATH. The World Hunger Organization estimates that one of every seven people on this planet are going hungry each day. There are literally dozens of countries where the weekly budget for food for a family of four is less than our families spend on one trip to McDonalds. We eat so well that our country is morbidly obese while children in other parts of the world appear anorexic and their ribcage is so exposed that they often don’t even appear human. These people do not have such a thing as a restaurant or even a grocery store in most cases, yet we have complaining as Red Lobster, the Olive Garden and Burger King is packed to the hilt almost every night.

Overpopulation-We are running out of space. The world population recently passed the seven billion mark and continues to grow each day. This population issue is one that really doesn’t receive much attention but it is simple mathematics that a seven-year old could understand. Our planet is a certain size with a certain amount of resources. As time passes, there are more and more people using more and more of these resources. As the population continues to increase, the rate at which we consume these resources continues to increase as well. All these facts lead us to a grim conclusion, that being we are rapidly moving to a point where there will be no resources left. The United States aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East, an area rich in the valuable resource of oil, is a shining example of what this issue will lead to. In the future, as resources dwindle, we will continue to see countries that use the largest amount of these resources become more and more aggressive towards making sure they are in control of what is available, and this aggression will only lead to further military conflict as each country tries to make sure it has what it needs, even if it is at the expense of others.

Nationalism- People’s pride in their country can be an extremely scary thing. Often, especially in the more stable and successful countries, we see that citizens who are intoxicated with their way of life have no problem with their country acting immoral as long as it enables them to have what they want. Only 50 years ago, we saw a Nazi Germany try to take over most of Europe and while there were many Germans opposed to their genocide and war mongering along moral lines, there were also many who were fine with it because of their nationalistic support of the growth of what they considered their “superior” country. In today’s world, as a citizen of the United States, I have to say that this nationalistic pride is alive and well today. When our country involves itself militarily in other parts of the world, a sure sign of said nationalism is how quickly anyone who does not support a military action is “unpatriotic” or “doesn’t support the troops”. Just because a person doesn’t support the reason for a war doesn’t mean they want our noble troops to die but because of the effect of nationalism, those people are often accused of that. This prideful feeling forcing people to ignore morality, truth or reason is growing in many countries other than ours and is a very scary phenomenon.

Human Rights– Living in the United States, we are not exposed to human rights violations very often but we are in the minority. There are countries all over the planet that torture their citizens, oppress religious belief, restrict their citizens from being able to freely leave their country, and punish people for lifestyle choices such as homosexuality. The reason this is a worldwide problem is that with today’s world being so much more globalized than it was in the past, these violations cause instability inside the countries that perpetrate them and also leave countries that are more free with the moral issue of whether they can stand by as these people are abused. These human rights violations create worldwide tension and often are the driving factor behind total revolutions that regularly affect many people outside of the country they take place in.

Sure, there are many more issues that face the modern-day world, but the ones I’ve just discussed, at least to me, seem like they trump smaller ones such as material gains, or the lifestyles of people living like kings in one country while another country starves. Just my opinion and I welcome any comments about any topics I may have missed.

Yes, you guessed it, I am talking about members of our government, the House of Representatives to be specific. This blog post will be more significant than others for one simple reason. Our country is full of citizens filled with disgust and even hate towards the leadership in this country that is seemingly driving us to the brink of collapse with each passing year. My advice to those people??

SHUT UP!!

Yes you read that right. Now many of my readers are probably wondering why I, a person usually on the side of the people, would act so harshly but let me explain. Despite the fact that our governments ineptitude seemingly knows no bounds, seemingly gets worse every year that passes, we the people re-elect these same institutional failures over and over and over again.

I took the time to look into how many of these people have been in office for an extended period of time and was stunned to learn that the vast majority of them have maintained their position, being re-elected again and again and again despite their unity in failure in our government.Take a look at some of these numbers and wonder to yourself why other people lose their jobs when they suck at them, yet these people….people who have arguably the most important jobs in this country, are able to fail over and over and we reward them by giving them longevity. After we do so, we then bitch about how the government works….are ya seeing the problem here??? Check these facts….

In the House Of Representatives there are over 200 reps. who have held their seat for 10 years or longer!! Can you believe that? As much as people have complained, justifiably, about the rapid decline of this country, these failed leaders have been reelected again and again and again. With that being true its hard to listen to the complaints of the public when we keep putting these morons back in office again and again.

I jumped online today and the first thing I saw was a story about yet another bombing in Iraq, this time targeting a Shiite funeral procession. This continues to be business as usual in Iraq and after spending a decade there with our military, losing the lives of thousands of American troops, and life there is arguably no better than it was when Saddam Hussein was in power. Anybody who would dare try to say we improved things there should first consider the following numbers, then try to tell me with a straight face that we made things better.

From 2003-the end of 2011 there were between 105,000 and 114,000 documented civilian deaths in Iraq related to the instability after the removal of Saddam and the occupation by America and their allies.

In the month of January this year, there were 365 documented civilian deaths, great way to start 2012

14,712 (apx.13%) of all documented civilian deaths were reported as being directly caused by the US-led coalition

After examining these numbers, which vary slightly from source to source, I just find it staggering that anyone could look back and support our invasion of Iraq. We have left the country, arguably at the beginning of what could be a period in their history that will rival the sadness of the Hussein regime. On top of the continued instability, we have left the country ripe to be infected with terrorist influence and also open to interference from Iran, a country we clearly have in our sights for their nuclear program. The last thing we want is a terror state,but our actions have taken Iraq from a dictatorship to what is becoming a total quagmire and as time passes and the instability gets worse, I think we are going to see that the terror actions we so despise are going to have an easier and easier time embedding themselves in a country so disorganized and divided that it’s instability will act as a fog for those who are against us to hide in.

The worst part of this war is that there is no justice. There is no justice for our brave, fallen men and women of the military. There will not be a positive memory of them as liberators. The very people they went to war to help still despise us as much as ever. The nobility shown by our troops in their effort to risk their lives for what they thought would be freedom is ending instead as an unarguable waste of time. Afghanistan continues and I think those of us with a free mind clearly see that Iran is next unless they “get into line”.

I always thought a war happened for one of two reasons. Either because a country is defending itself from attack or an effort to conquer another territory. These wars have created a new category of reason for war. An attempt, a failed one in this case, to install a form of government on people who never wanted it in the first place. When this happens and there isn’t success you wind up with a situation where you go from a bad set of leaders to no leaders at all and everyone there struggling to fill the vacuum of power. The result just can’t be good.

During a time in our country when many middle class citizens are clamoring for more contribution from the wealthy to our tax system, I thought I would once again try to illustrate a point. I have been told, rather angrily by some out there, that they rich “have enough” and that they shouldn’t have a problem giving up their “extra” wealth. I wanted to show that the middle class in this country need a little perspective on how good they have it compared to others in the world, and how they might wanna reassess their level of gratitude for what they have as Americans. Think about the following….

XBOX 360-Price( Best Buy-$200.00) In 2008 there had been approximately 10 million units sold in the United States and though there are many wealthy people who own one, there are also many people I know who have one that could be considered “middle class”.

Perspective– In the African country of Chad, the average food budget for one week for a family of four is $1.23….yes you read that correctly. So if each middle class individual was willing to part with this non-necessity for the sake of other people, they could each feed a family of four in Chad for 162 weeks, the equivalent of 3 years!

World of Warcraft($19.99), DC Universe Online($39.99), and Star Wars:The Old Republic($59.99)– These three games, all extremely popular in the United States, have a retail cost of approximately $40.00(average) and I won’t even include any monthly fees associated. I personally know many people, easily classified as “middle class” who play this game on a regular basis.

Perspective-The Kingdom of Bhutan, a landlocked kingdom located near Nepal has an average weekly food budget for a family of $5.03 meaning if an individual would sell their non-necessary World Of Warcraft game(retail $20.00) and also count in the ten-dollar monthly fee($120.00 for twelve months,$160.00 total) then that middle class citizen would be able to feed a family in Bhutan for 31 weeks, the equivalent of almost 8 months!!

Cable TV– Just about every person has cable, ours is like $40.00. Cable TV in this country is basically looked at as a necessity when in fact, it is entertainment and nothing more in most cases.

Perspective-In Ecuador, located in South America, the average family has $31.50 per week to spend on food. So if the average person here gave up their cable for one year, it could feed a family of four in Ecuador for almost 3 months.

Now this might seem ridiculous to some people, and I have been attacked for having this view, but what I have shown here is fact, not opinion. There are people starving all over the world, yet people here who look to the next highest income bracket to contribute more and more to the country never even consider giving up their non-essentials to benefit someone they don’t know. I’m not saying that you should all go out and sell your Xbox’s but instead of hating those more successful than you and wanting to increase their burden beyond the 40% of the total tax collected they already pay, maybe you should be grateful that you and your family, even in the poorest parts of this country, live like kings compared to elsewhere in the world.

So I got into a sort of argument today with a friend I consider highly intelligent and also a good friend and person. We were discussing the amount of tax paid by the wealthy and whether it was fair to expect the wealthy to pay a higher tax percentage than the rest of us(middle class, lower class etc.). I, personally, as a person who is a stay at home dad and doesn’t currently have a job, do not think they should and I wanted to delve into the issue in the hopes of getting people to understand where I am coming from and why. Sadly, like many issues in this country, politicians on both sides are constantly misrepresenting the facts around this issue, making it even harder to form a fact based opinion. Let’s look at a few things that are fact, not opinion because I think that will help us have a clearer view of the issue.

The top 1% of earners in this country, depending on your source, pay approximately 37-40% of all the taxes collected from individuals each year. This is the first reason I do not support a raise in the tax rate for millionaires. Despite what one political party or another implies, these people already pay far more than the middle and lower class does into the tax coffer.

Second, and this is my personal opinion, to me to have a realistic view of who is contributing what you have to look at the dollars not the percentages. The reason for this is that when looking at dollars, you have a measurable figure you can factor in to each person’s contribution on an even playing field of value. A dollar has the same value no matter where it comes from but percentages carry different weights with different income levels. Percentages are nice but because each person makes a different amount of money you can’t really make an even comparison. For example, there are wealthy people who last year paid 5 million dollars in taxes. There are also middle and lower class people who paid $12,000 dollars last year. Now when you look at the percentages, it doesn’t tell the true story, which is that the person who paid the 5 million, regardless of percentage, paid 416 times the amount that the $12,000 person did. Now, in my opinion, I just cannot understand how anyone could say that the first person in this example is not paying their fair share when, in dollars, they contributed more to the financial well-being of our country in one year than the second person will contribute in their whole life!

Third. We are a free capitalistic country where we supposedly have the freedom and the liberty to live our lives the way we wish. Now because of that fact, and I know this bugs some people, but if a person, in their life, values being rich more than anything else, they are free to be as rich as they want. I don’t think this makes them a very good person but I personally value some things that others think are crazy and I want that right, so I can’t justify denying that right to another person.

Fourth and Final point-Look, I wish we lived in a world where everyone was a Care Bear and wanted to help each other but we don’t. For those out there that feel the rich owe us more, what would you say to an extra tax being added to the middle class so that we can help starving children in Africa for example? Think about it…should the middle class be told they need to help the super poor? And don’t give me the “we can’t afford it” excuse because it is the middle class that fills football stadiums, music venues and movie theaters every day. Those are not necessities are they? So why not take the middle classes right to have that pointless entertainment,so children halfway around the world don’t have to drink water with dirt in it? I’ll tell you why, because if a politician came out with that proposal there would be outrage over personal freedom,over a person’s right to have a beer after work, over the government deciding what is a priority in your life.

Those are the reasons I feel it is no more fair to expect the rich to fix the problems of the middle class than it is to expect the middle class to give up all non-essentials so that poverty over the world could be solved. Its human nature, people wouldn’t accept it and anybody who either wants to do one but not the other, I’m sorry, is being a hypocrite. Give up your video games, your beer, your cigarettes, all things that you want but don’t need and give it all to the super poor and when the middle class does that en masse then I will happily support that same middle classes request that the rich give their extra to them.

In a time when there are so many issues facing us all in their daily lives, it seems to me that one of the most important and often overlooked things in the world are the people playing intricate roles in the application of solutions. Yes these people are often under the microscope of the media and the public, but it seems to me that far too often, the perception of these people is far more recognized than the reality. The following is a list of individuals who I feel society should shun and cast out of the public eye, not because I personally have anything against them, but more because the facts show that their involvement in our issues is completely and unarguably having a negative effect. Keep in mind I am not asking for a legal solution as much as I am asking people to recognize reason and hold these individuals to a standard for the negative influence they have.

1.Ann Coulter– First off, Ms. Coulter is a lawyer, so that is strike one…lol……ok, so all kidding aside Coulter is a person who clearly cares far more about selling books than she does about making a positive contribution to pretty much anything other than her own bank account. From her clearly bias liberal bashing that is often far more rooted in hate than it is in fact, to her playing on stereotypes about Muslims, homosexuals and pretty much anybody who is not white and rich, she is as close to a hatemonger as anybody in the public eye. You need only look to her constant reference to our president as “B. Hussein Obama” to see how she attempts to play on people’s ignorance to forward her agenda by invoking her right to free speech to encourage hate towards a whole race of people. You need only look at the quote following this entry to see her elitist, racist, warmongering attitude shine through and the fact that she has pride in this behavior shows a gap in morality that is much wider than her tight ass. Her commentary contributes nothing but fuel to a racist and bias fire and if she was to suddenly disappear tomorrow I would have to believe that society as a whole would benefit.

2. Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Bill O’reilly, Bret Baier, Rachael Maddow, Rush Limbaugh– I decided to group these folks together for two reasons. One, they represent some of the most visible people in a group of “media” people who can not be factually classified as anything but spreaders of pure hate . Two, there are so many more I figured I would just use these blowhards to represent the rest of them so feel free to add in a few. Each of these individuals is guilty of taking the trust of their viewers, often people who are easily influenced, and abusing it by lying, misleading and mis-characterizing facts on a regular basis in order to push a personal agenda under the guise of journalism. Yes, many of them will make the statement that they are not actually journalists, but through their statements and actions they give their viewers the impression that they are from one side of their mouth, as they deny being one out of the other side. The most important part of the problem here though is that each of the individuals encourages intolerance and anger towards those that do not agree with them. This hate they teach infects their followers, and in doing so, makes members of society hateful towards each other before they even begin to discuss an issue. In doing so, they perpetuate hate between people and they all profit handsomely in doing so. What’s even worse is that they feel pride in their divisive actions, embracing a life of wealth earned by preaching intolerance. Talking robots that provided the facts of the news would be a serious improvement and each of these people are part of the problem, not the solution.

There is really no limit to how many offensive actions this group of clowns has taken part in but I could dedicate a whole blog to their idiocy and I want to include a few others somewhat outside of the “media” world

3. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and the rest of the congressional Democrats.-For all of the bad people like to pile on the Republicans, these three freak-shows have done their part to play the other side of the coin to nauseating perfection. All of them are so dedicated to hating the Republican view, they are usually more than willing to ignore the needs of the country as long as they feel like they can spin their actions to make the other party look bad. The fact that many of them have actually been reelected is a shocking example of how little quality the general public demands of their leadership and with leaders like this I would think most citizens wouldn’t have time to hate leaders of other countries labeled “evil” when we have our own home-grown crop right here.

4. John McCain– Yes, he was a P.O.W. and yes he served his country. Unfortunately, he has spent so much time lining his pockets at the expense of the American public that it grossly outweighs any war related effort he has put in during his life. McCain has been investigated for ethics violations and often seems willing to do anything he can that will allow him to label himself as an “outsider”, even when his actions support nothing but his own ego and agenda. I forget who said it, but recently someone publicly stated that his time as a P.O.W. may have mentally damaged him but it is hard to believe that someone who has put meticulous effort into his own wealth, whether or not it has helped his constituents, is anything but a scheming elitist.

5. The American Public-Now this may seem unfair but think about it. We elect and then re-elect criminals, morons, racists, bigots, and thieves. We judge each other and treat each other poorly based on gender, race, religion, political affiliation. We feel entitled from the time we are children. We value athletes, actors and musicians much more than we value police, teachers and firefighters. We attend debates and speeches and cheer wildly as politicians spew complete lies and we eat it up. We are the country that has made multimillionaires out such geniuses as Lady Gaga, Snooki Polizzi and Larry The Cable Guy( I can’t believe that warrants capitalization). We fight an endless battle over gay marriage as the straight portion of the public gets divorced at a record pace. Now some people who read this will say “if you don’t like it here then why don’t you leave?”, but the thing is, I love it here. That’s why it makes me so sad to see us squandering the greatness and liberty this country was founded on so we can watch reality tv, straight to DVD movies from the same second-rate actors over and over, and listen to music that promotes sex, violence, racism, hatred and disrespect towards women.

In conclusion, this list is but a fraction of the people qualified to be on it but I have a wife and if I keep going I may never stop. Thanks for reading

Ok so last night, after about a half hour of lunacy I had to turn off the GOP debate. Not because I necessarily support the Democrats over the GOP but because this race has become such a lying clown-show where the facts are constantly wrong that it is actually nauseating to think one of these men is going to be one of the two finalists for the President of The United States. I mean geez…if these men want to lead the most powerful country on the Earth shouldn’t they be held to a standard of at least telling the truth sometimes?? The following fact checking did not originate with me, it is all over the internet but I thought I’d discuss a few of the entertaining moments.

Romney started the idiocy by trying to make Obama look militarily soft by claiming that he has allowed the Navy to become smaller “than any time since 1917.” While it is true we had more ships in 1917 than we do now, today’s figure is actually larger than all of the last four years of the Bush administration. So Mitt, you weren’t even close on that one….On top of that wouldn’t you figure as ships are armed with more power technologically, we would logically need fewer to do the same job? I think we’re a little bit ahead of the 1917 war technology these days aren’t we?

Romney claimed Obama has “no plans” for NASA. In truth it was George Bush who put the plan in motion to retire the shuttle program and it’s end in 2010 cost Florida residents quite a few jobs. Obama does have a NASA plan in action including the development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle designed to be able to get outside the Earth’s atmosphere with the goals of landing on an asteroid by 2025 and on Mars sometime in the 2030’s. Strike two Mitt…you would think these guys would realize that we all have internet nowadays and can look up the facts behind these statements. I hope Obama is defeated by someone in the next election but it’s hard to imagine any of these guys have a chance when they spend a debate just making things up.

Romney continued his attacks on the federal health care law, saying that the country has $15 trillion in debt and President Obama “adds another trillion on top for Obamacare and for his stimulus plan that didn’t create private-sector jobs.”But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will reduce yearly deficits — by $119 billion over the 2012-2019 period — not add to them. Again these numbers and information comes from a variety of online sources such as FactCheck.org, I’m just passing the info on.

Gingrich wrongly claimed “that, when I was speaker, we had four consecutive balanced budgets.” Only two of the four occurred while Gingrich was speaker.

I don’t want people to think I’m being biased so here’s a look at some upcoming Obama statements.

President Obama’s first 2012 campaign ad misleads on ethics, “clean-energy” jobs and U.S. dependence on oil imports.

The spot uses outdated quotes from groups that said his record on ethics is “unprecedented” and that he “kept a promise to toughen ethics rules.” One of those same groups said later that he “has let down millions of Americans who accepted his word,” and another rated his promise as “broken.”

The 30-second TV spot also trumpets a claim of “2.7 million jobs” in “America’s clean-energy industry.” That mostly counts jobs put in place long before Obama took office.

Finally, it boasts that U.S. dependence on foreign oil has declined to below 50 percent, as a net share of total demand, for the first time in more than a decade. That’s true, and increasing U.S. oil production is a factor (despite Republican criticisms that Obama is anti-drilling). But economists say the chief factor is reduced oil consumption, brought on by the recent economic recession.

I want to restate that the majority of this information comes from FactCheck.org as well as other independent online sources and is not my information but I felt it was worthwhile enough to spread the information. If you would like further information I would suggest reading FactCheck.org as well as other fact checking sites.

I had a conversation with a friend today that motivated me to write a post. As I have been watching the political issues facing out country lately I have been quite disturbed at the direction the conversation is going. Over the past few years we have really seen an upswing in the amount of anger being directed at the wealthy and, not surprisingly, this has coincided with a few of the major corporations out there breaking the law and financially benefiting from it. That being said, I felt it was time to make a point about a phenomenon that has occurred as a result. Instead of people being focused on what they should be looking at, that being laws being broken, they have instead embraced a swell of envy between the classes of financial success in this country. Let me clarify. There are many people in this country who are very wealthy and that fact should be a source of pride for Americans, as it shows that with hard work and good decisions, one can achieve almost anything they want from a financial sense in this country. Now I am not talking about people who have ripped off the general public, or taken advantage of the system, but instead those dedicated individuals out there who have dedicated their life’s effort to becoming wealthy. The vast majority of the wealthy in this country have become that way through legitimate hard work and sacrifice, yet it seems nowadays that having wealth is generally associated with wrongdoing.This is where the conversation has gone awry in my opinion. If you only make 30k a year, it is not the fault of a millionaire, nor should that millionaire be responsible for paying extra for your freedoms. Yes, I agree that if a law is broken, no one is out of line for demanding justice, but to just generally blame the problems in YOUR life on someone you’ve never met just become they have an income ten times higher than yours is beyond ridiculous and also goes against the very freedom and liberty many of the citizens in this country are so passionate about. We all have opportunities and even though there are always exceptions to the rule, the vast majority of us are in a place in our lives that WE put ourselves in.

To show you how dedicated I am to this opinion I am going to put myself right out in the open for you to ridicule, agree with, or look down upon. I am 38 years old. I am going to school using student loans provided to me by the government. I could have done this 20 years ago but I was more interested in partying with my friends and spending my money on immediate gratification than I was planning for the future. I spent many years uninsured because I hopped from job to job, mainly due to the fact that my only real motivation to work was to stay off the streets and have money to spend on good times. I have medical debt as a result of this and a below average credit score. I do not have a car, a bank account, or any kind of savings directed at my retirement. To be completely honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that I am married to an educated and successful woman, I could probably fit everything I own into a small closet. Thanks to insurance provided by my wife’s job, I am just starting to get my teeth fixed after years of no dental insurance and even though i am only 38, I am missing at least 7 permanent teeth(thank god they are the back ones…lol). I have taken probably two vacations in the last 15 years. I have never had a car loan, or any type of loan for that matter, other than a $700.00 loan from a great friend I used to buy a 1992 Ford tempo…..in 2006. here’s the thing though…every single thing I just described, and I admit and realize it isn’t a very impressive list of accomplishments, is EXACTLY what I deserved for the amount of effort I put in. I didn’t try hard, I didn’t work hard and I didn’t plan for the future. So after all that, where in the hell would I get the gall to blame anyone but MYSELF for the lack of “success”(by societies definition)???

Those who know me are aware that I am passionate about our country and the world but I want to clarify that my passion begins and ends with justice, freedom, liberty and morality. I am broke because of me, no one else, and while I am sickened by those who break the law to get rich I am also enamored with those who did it the right way. So I hope after reading this people, both friends and family, realize that I am NEVER against the right to be rich, successful, or being driven by financial or material success. I only oppose acceptance of the law being broken to do so. Mitt Romney, running for the GOP nomination, just released his income of 41 million dollars over the last two years. I do not fault him for making that much money nor do I feel he does not have the right to do so. I only hope that someone who makes so much has the insight to be able to relate to the common man should he be elected. It’s about truth people. I often slaw Newt Gingrich, not because he was wealthy but because he made at least a chunk of that wealth working on behalf of companies who either violated the law or acted immorally(lobbying for Freddie Mac, who’s inept practices damaged the economy that we all use as he profited from it.) I don’t want him to lose the nomination because he is rich but instead because lobbying for a company that hurt this country with its practices which shows judgement that, in my opinion, is too poor to qualify him to make larger decisions.

I hope anyone who reads this knows that I am here to champion morality, justice, and freedom, but never entitlement or envy towards someone who has worked harder than I have.

I admit, I am a conspiracy buff. I have always found them interesting simply because they are usually fantastical and complex in their supposed structure. Secret organizations, alien plots, wonders of science too classified for the general public, these all tend to be apt descriptions for many of the conspiracy theories we read and hear about virtually every day. I want to take a moment today to drive home a few points that I feel almost can not be argued when considering the possibility of truth in some of these theories. In this post, I have no intention of telling you that you should or should not believe any of the theories in question. Instead, I am hoping to convince you that, while many of these theories will ultimately be found to be false, odds would dictate that either at least a few of them are true and if they aren’t, then conspiracy theories in general can be considered some sort of mass mental illness phenomenon.

You see, the way I look at it is that there are sooo many theories out there, so many countless unexplained or suspicious situations, that there has to be at least one or two that have more to them than just some simple explanation. On top of that, I feel it must be considered that our leaders have a very long, very proven history of being dishonest with the general public and because of their track record, it’s hard for me to believe we should take them at their word every time one of these situations arises. It is really that simple. If there was only one theory out there we could easily chalk it up to somebody being paranoid or having another agenda but when there are dozens and dozens and dozens of them, I just find it hard to believe that every single one of them is the work of some paranoid person every single time. If they are, then our country has a much bigger mental health issue than previously considered. Let’s look at some of the theories out there and I’ll comment and hopefully you will too as I always value my few readers opinions…(if my readers are real and not actually government-run robots designed to watch me all day….sorry I couldn’t resist..)

1) 9/11 being a hoax-this is a current conspiracy that provokes heated debate after heated debate. Everything from the attack being used to justify American occupation of the Middle East to the attack being perpetrated as a “false flag” terror attack used to rob American citizens of their civil rights. I, personally, have always thought the whole attack was more a case of negligence by the intelligence community, but there are some out there who would bet their souls there is more to it than that. I will say there are a few odd facts connected to the whole scenario, including the lack of a plane wreckage at the Pentagon, to the mass sell off of airline industry related stocks by people connected to the government only days before the attack. Personally, I find the lack of a wreckage at the Pentagon the strangest because even though the government has stated in burned up in the explosion, I have researched literally hundreds of plane wrecks in the last 30 years and except for ones that sunk in the ocean, there is almost always a significant piece of wreckage that remains. This doesn’t prove conspiracy but it is an odd circumstance.

2)Aliens crashed in New Mexico- In 1947 something crashed in the desert of New Mexico. The Army stated, rather explicitly,that they had recovered a “flying disc” from a nearby ranch. They quickly changed their tune though and provided evidence of a weather balloon, but the conspiracy theory was born. Now, I’m not saying this proves anything, and I’ve never lived in a town where a balloon crashed,but am I the only one who finds it odd that the army was the first organization to respond to a balloon crashing?? They usually aren’t the first responders to a plane crash but they’re all over those balloons?? These are the types of gaping chasms of logic missing that will always force people to question whether the government, proven liars let’s be honest, is being straightforward. Add on the fact that they then decided to build a massively secret base right there and you have the ingredients for a conspiracy theory.

3) The Moon landing was staged or faked-We have all heard this one. A collection of shadows, claims of inconsistent photographs and government denials have led to many people to believe we never actually went there but I believe these people are focusing on the wrong facts. To me, the biggest question surrounding the moon landing is simply the fact that currently our government is planning a return trip in 2020. Are you telling me that, with 1969 technology we were able to repeatedly land on the moon but in 2012 we are still 8 years away from being able to do it again? That and the fact we’ve been blowing up space shuttles here and there with modern-day technology just trying to get into orbit, which can’t be anywhere near as difficult as landing on the moon. You would think, based on technological progression in pretty much every single category, that if we could do it repeatedly in 1969 then it should be a cakewalk with today’s advanced technology.

There are many, many more out there but I’ve had enough fun for now. I hope if you took the time to read this that you realize I am not saying any of these theories are true, only that there are gaps in logic and reason so wide that a fifth grader could understand it. What that means to me is that either some of these theories out there, not necessarily the three I listed, are true and that if every single one of them are truly false, then mental illness has become an epidemic of historical proportions….have a nice day…